


Happy, Alone

by mousemind



Series: Happy/Alone [1]
Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Gen, M/M, Pining, mentions of Jared's sad childhood, set post season 2, unlikely friendships!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-08
Updated: 2015-09-08
Packaged: 2018-04-19 17:16:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4754615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mousemind/pseuds/mousemind
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Donald Dunn is twelve years old when he wakes to find his house abandoned.</p><p>Donald Dunn calls himself "Jared" and is just past twenty-eight years old the next time he wakes to find someone gone in the middle of the night.</p><p>(Set after 2.10, Richard departs for Tulsa without so much as a note, and Erlich helps Jared cope with being left behind)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happy, Alone

**Author's Note:**

> I dunno what to say - I can't get enough of Erlich and Jared forming an unlikely friendship! This absolutely can be read as a one-shot, but was written as a sort of follow-up to "[Tough Love.](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4410806)"

Donald Dunn is twelve years old when he wakes to find his house abandoned.

At first, he has a hard time quantifying whether or not he is upset. 

It's his second foster home, not counting the short time he spent with his uncle after his mother's death. He isn't happy here, which burns him up with guilt. He should be thankful to have any place at all - was so miserable during that short stint at the group home - but sometimes he catches himself standing at the front door after coming home from school, afraid to turn the doorknob, repeating to himself, " _it's okay, it's okay, this is your home, it's okay_."

So when he wakes up a few days before Christmas to an eerily silent house, he wonders if he should be frightened, but instead he's unnaturally calm. 

_You saw this coming_ , he tells himself.  _You were trouble. Someone like you can't be trouble._

A month or so ago, his sixth grade teacher called home to ask about him. Donald sits in the hallway outside the kitchen and eavesdrops, can faintly hear his teacher's voice over the receiver turned way up: Donald isn't looking so good. Is he eating? Is he sick? The nurse did our yearly lice-checks and couldn't even complete Donald's because his hair was so matted up.

The next morning his foster father shoves him over the sink in the bathroom and shaves his head. His four older brothers snigger and tease from the open doorway, but Donald can hardly hear their jibes over the buzz of the electric razor. When all is said and done, Donald tries not to be upset. It's hair, it'll grow back. But he looks unsettling close to how he remembers his poor mother looking in her last days, so he avoids mirrors even more than usual.

His sixth grade teacher sees him that day in homeroom and audibly gasps.

A CPS agent drops by the house not long after.

_Trouble_ , Donald knows.  _This is trouble._

Needless to say, he is unsurprised when a week later, the day after school has been released for the holidays, his entire foster family has picked up and left in the middle of the night.

Donald spends a week in the abandoned house, expecting loneliness or fear to set in, but instead feeling oddly peaceful. He entertains the fantasy of being an adult: self-sufficient, unafraid, dependent on no one for his happiness or his needs. The day after the New Year, the heat is shut off. Then, the electricity. Donald packs up his little fantasy and his one bag of belongings and walks to the nearest police station.

He didn't  _feel_ abandoned, he tells the police clerk. He was happy alone. But, as expected, it was onto the next foster home not long after. 

\----

Donald Dunn calls himself "Jared" now and is just past twenty-eight years old the next time he wakes to find someone gone in the middle of the night.

At first, he refuses to believe it's true. Richard isn't gone. His clothes are missing because he's cleaning. He hasn't been home all day because he needs time away from the hostel. His laptop is with him wherever he is, as are his books, and sheets, and most of his shoes.

_Trouble_ , says that voice in his head again, as his watch beeps to signify it's 11pm now. He tells himself that when he wakes up, everything will be back to the way it was.

Morning comes, and still no sign of Richard. Erlich slips a piece of paper to Jared across the breakfast table. It's an email to Richard's inbox confirming his flight: LAX direct to Tulsa International Airport, departed 6:15am yesterday morning. 

Jared's head floods with too many thoughts too quickly, until the only thing he's able to stutter out is,

"You... you know his email password?"

Erlich shrugs. "Came in handy, didn't it?" 

Jared shakes his head. "You shouldn't have done that."

"It's been two days," Erlich barks, "I was worried about him. Weren't you?" 

Jared keeps shaking his head, falls into the hypnotic feeling of the repetitive motion, keeping a flood of terrible thoughts at bay. 

"Richard will be upset with you when he comes home," Jared scolds. 

The silence in the room is palpable.

"Jared," Erlich starts, almost warningly. 

"Anyway, it's something we'll deal with when Richard gets back," Jared interrupts more aggressively than he's used to. "We'll deal with it soon. When he gets back. I'll call him now, start -- "

His right thumb is drumming incessantly on the wooden tabletop.  _That's odd_ , he thinks distantly,  _when did that start?_ He remembers he's in the middle of speaking.

"Start -- um -- figuring out the plan -- " 

Erlich's eyes narrow suspiciously. Feeling pinned under his scrutiny, Jared stumbles to his feet too quickly and makes a beeline for the door.

"Later," Jared shouts at no one in particular, but Erlich is on him in a second, a hand wrapped around his wrist, then another brushing over his shoulders, ushering him back to the table with an uncharacteristic sort of gentleness. Jared is helped back into a seat, vaguely aware of the tremor in his hands, that his teeth are chattering even though it isn't cold at all. Erlich approaches again with a mug. 

"Here's what I need you to do," Erlich commands, but not unkindly. "You're gonna sit here and you're gonna drink this water. The whole thing. Yeah?" 

Jared gapes at him in a vacant way that he's sure he'd be embarrassed about if he weren't so preoccupied with not passing out here in the middle of the kitchen.

"Then, you and I are gonna go pack up your stuff next door and move it into Richard's room." 

"No," Jared manages to croak.

"Why?"

"Where will Richard stay when he gets back?" 

Erlich exhales a long, long breath as he tucks his hands into the pockets of his sweatpants. 

"Jared, you're a smart guy," he says quietly, not quite meeting his eyes. "You don't need me to say it."

\----

"I'm sorry," Jared says later, sitting beside Erlich in the reclining poolside chairs, blinking into the mid-afternoon sun. "I'm embarrassed."

"You do cry loudly," Erlich scoffs, "Anyone ever told you that before?"

Jared catches Erlich smirking somewhat despite himself, and can't help but smile in return.

"You were very comforting," Jared proffers gently, testing these new and still tentative waters. The Erlich that presented himself during Jared's vicious panic attack was not an Erlich that Jared was familiar with: an Erlich with a cool washcloth, and broad gentle hands, and a low, even voice. 

"Yeah, yeah," Erlich huffs, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. Jared hopes the emotional openness hasn't made him too uneasy, but he soon realizes Erlich is only reaching for a lighter in his back pocket. 

"Keep in mind," Erlich continues, lighting a joint he apparently conjured out of air, pulling in a generous hit and exhaling just as deeply, "I could still snap your neck. Easily."

"Acknowledged," Jared concedes. Then, a bit more bravely, "Nonetheless, thank you." 

Erlich nods his acceptance. He extends the joint towards Jared with eyebrows raised expectantly. 

"No, thank you," Jared declines politely. 

"You might feel a little better," Erlich entices, but Jared dismisses it again, instead content to watch Erlich take another impressively large hit. 

"So, what'dya think," he asks on his exhale, "You gonna go out to Tulsa and get him back?"

Jared bites his bottom lip and looks away, suddenly weighted down by that stomach-turning feeling of shame again.

"He doesn't want me."

"Richie doesn't know what he wants," Erlich says nonchalantly, putting out his joint on the metal arm of the pool chair. He fixes Jared with a deliberate glance,

"What do  _you_  want?"

Jared is positive he's blushing, but at this point it's hardly the most embarrassing thing he's revealed about himself today.

"I'm not certain," Jared answers, though they both know there are a lot of things Jared desires that he would never voice aloud.

"You should decide," Erlich advises, "You can't both not know what you want."

Erlich groans loudly as he pushes himself to his feet and out of the low-seated chair. 

"Come on, let's go get your shit next door." 

Jared swallows hard and admits,

"I can't sleep in his bed." His voice is tight, creaky around the words. "I -- I'm sorry. I can't."

And just as Jared feels himself sinking into that mire of humiliation and regret and fear again, Erlich says,

"We have  _couches,_  dipshit."

\----

Jared picks a spot on the ceiling to focus on as he recalls that as a child, he often wanted to be alone. He tells Erlich about the abandoned house. About living there on his own contented, sufficient, imagining what it would be like to be an adult and have this freedom whenever he pleased.

"Alone is lonely," Erlich says simply, shrugging his heavy shoulders once. It's surprising, Jared considers, hearing Erlich admit anything about his emotional inner life.

But then again, it shouldn't come as such a surprise from the man who insisted Jared move himself and his belongings next door just so they could be in the same house.

Erlich turns off the light in the living room, bids a clipped goodnight. Jared replies in kind as he rolls over and closes his eyes.

"He'll be back," Erlich speaks into the space between them, just before turning and plodding out of the room with slow, heavy footsteps. Jared exhales as deeply as he can muster. 

He supposes he has always admired Erlich's confidence.

\----

It's just past two a.m. in Tulsa when Richard turns onto his back and speaks aloud into the darkness of his bedroom,

"I wouldn't forgive me."


End file.
